The HOTWV Twilight Zone

[OzzyKP]

Due to curiousity, I wondered what it would be like to play France in HOTWV. Since I like come from behind victories, and I think they really did have a better start than people think.

So I loaded up the save from Session 1 and played against the AI for a while. Its now 1282 AD, and France is 2nd in points and moving in on first.

Now granted this was against the AI and I couldn't do as good against human players, but I think its interesting. Things could have turned out much differently.

I expanded early, built lots of wonders and went for the east island. A German city culture flipped to me, another one is on the way.

Anyways its fun to look into an alternate reality. India is very much stunted, France is powerful.

Then again, Russia is top dog and America starts wars for no reason... the more things change the more they stay the same.

Oh, and I was all frustrated in the real game how Hinduism never spread much. Well in this game it spread EVERYWHERE. Not long into the game every civ was Hindu except Spain & China. Grr. Why couldn't it have worked that way in the real game?

[OzzyKP]

The save if anyone is interested in checking it out:

[OmnipotentTrout]

Aaaaah, the delights of hindsight

[Robert]

Be aware that France would have crushed the German AI in the 2nd session, were it not that France didn't for good reasons. (LzPrst wouldn't like it)

Be aware that France was about to culture flip a German city as well but LzPrst came back in time to prevent that from happening.

Be aware that France wasn't aware that there were islands south-west to Germany.

Be aware that we all know that India would be behind were it not that in our 'real' game India got some good help from the best nations in the world. Help that France lacked.

In other words: your twilight game shows what we all already knew. Good that you're doing a good job with France though, on noble lever

[LzPrst]

also to be mentioned, germany can see from the get go the closest island. noone else can. a human player would as a result never give you open borders so you could get there first. of course my AI in session 2 or 3 made that deal with deity (or likely deity's AI) and that caused the whole deal about island competition. if I had played sessions 2-3 those Islands would have been german. my point is just that the AI is an idiot. a big one. I bet I could play mongolia to victory

[Robert]

On noble level for sure.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by CyberShy
Be aware that France wasn't aware that there were islands south-west to Germany.

Amazing how England was aware and not France. If you send a unit to the far SW of Germany you can see the outline of another landmass.

Originally posted by CyberShy Be aware that we all know that India would be behind were it not that in our 'real' game India got some good help from the best nations in the world. Help that France lacked.

India didn't succeed solely because of help, India succeeded because she was well managed by someone with a real strategy. Allies just helped in overcoming my rotten luck (like Hinduism's failure to spread like it did in my above game, and my failure to get a great prophet to benefit from my early religion).

Originally posted by CyberShy In other words: your twilight game shows what we all already knew. Good that you're doing a good job with France though, on noble lever

My game wsa posted not primarily to prove a point, but just to reflect on interesting it is to see how differently the game turns out. Where different AI expand to, etc. I guess you just don't appreciate that.

[The Capo]

Ozzy I think its cool, they're just complaining because their countries WERE screwed up and they complained about game balance (which has happened now by the way) and now they want to tow the company line, so to speak.

That's all.

I would ignore them.

[LzPrst]

i'm not sure if I know what you mean capo, but if it is what I suspect, I dont appreciate it. especially not the part about ignoring us. I am not complaining about my start, and though it has its weaknesses, my complaints about the game have mostly been towards what I consider weak ingame "powerbalancing". though I've come to realize that it is part of the game.

My game wsa posted not primarily to prove a point, but just to reflect on interesting it is to see how differently the game turns out. Where different AI expand to, etc. I guess you just don't appreciate that

I didnt get that from the first post... and I do find it quite interesting actually. my point was merely that the actions of the AI cant be compared with human intelligence, that was all I was saying. I do find the results interesting. that spain\china\russia are very alike in this game to ours for example, then again what other settling options do these nations have?

england and mongolias settling is also fascinating, though they're probably doomed. again, I'm not complaining, I'm merely pointing out that a human player would have probably done differently and most likely gotten a better result. as did ozzy, when he says that what his success would probably not be possible vs human adversaries.

and you're absolutely right, its interesting to look at and our game could have turned out very differently indeed. and I do appreciate your post, I was merely speaking of certain prerequisites for the possibilty of your outcome.
please dont put words in my mouth or opinions that arent there, I am fully capable of expressing them myself.

[deity]

Not a bad Dragon bashing thread ozzy

[Robert]

The Capo: I'm not complaining dude, you should really learn the difference

I know that Ozzy just did it for fun and not to prove anything, I just jumped on the bandwagon and reacted to it :P
Hence the smileys

@Ozzy: Dragon didn't have open borders with germany. Only b/c of the AI England got open borders with Germany (read LzPrst's post) so the islands were out of sight.

And of course your lead is a combination of better skills then the Indian AI and your allies. But it IS a combination.

And again, I'm a little bit surprised that you guys are surprises that we react to this. Not to mention that I'm sure that "prove that it is possible to dominate with France" was one of your reasons to do this as well